


burn me with your brightness

by truthbealiar



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Canon Fix-It, Ramsay is His Own Warning, Theon Greyjoy Lives, domestic theonsa, if you think this has a happy ending, you're damn right it does
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 04:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19288456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truthbealiar/pseuds/truthbealiar
Summary: He does not die because he is a hero, and the only heroic thing left is to look the truth in the face. Theon looked Sansa Stark in the face, and he came back to her.- or -"If you'll have me," he said.Sansa Stark would have Theon Greyjoy until the end of her days.





	burn me with your brightness

**Author's Note:**

> title and chapter titles from 'tiny ocean' by diā. i highly recommend you give it a listen!

 

* * *

**i.**

* * *

 

Master Wolkan hovered over Sansa like a hummingbird, flitting this way and that, instructing her on the proper way to sew flesh together, as if she had not been born with a needle in her hand. As if Sansa had not spent many nights curled in her chambers, twisting her body this way and that, threading her needle across the gashes of split skin, biting down on rotted wood to keep from screaming out. Ramsay hadn't liked her visiting Maester Wolkan, but even then Sansa had seen what infection did to a body. She was seeing the perils of it now as she stared across the unending stretch of bodies gathered in the hall of Winterfell, all of them needing the attention of a Maester. But there were only so many. Sansa had commanded that every woman or man adept with a needle do what they could.

Sansa was currently bent over a pale Northman, though she was loathe to call him that. Sansa tried to keep her eyes trained on the wound, and not the beardless, pockmarked face of the _boy_  who surely could not be any older than Bran. And yet he had fought in this war, and fought for all of the living. Sansa was determined that he would yet live, and use his arm. The Maester seemed doubtful that he would keep it, but Sansa had _seen_  the color drain from the boy's face. The Long Night may have been conquered, but the war was not yet won. A lack of an arm during wintertime could mean the difference between life and death. Sansa wouldn't let it be cut, not without doing everything she possibly could.

It kept her busy, sewing the flesh. It kept her eyes from drifting, every few moments, to where Samwell Tarly was huddled over a prone figure. One of those who needed a Maester, rather than a lady who could wield a needle. A man who needed a miracle more than anything. Sansa refocused her attention on the task at hand, offering the same silent prayer she always did, when her mind strayed back to _him_. But the walls of Winterfell were thick, and there was no saltwater sea here. There were only the tears that she refused to let fall. Sansa wondered if the Drowned God would listen to her prayers, even for one of his own.

Delicate hands continued to weave the thread in and out, while Sansa's mouth kept a steady stream of conversation. The boy, though growling in pain intermittently, seemed eager enough to respond, keeping his brown eyes carefully on Sansa all the while. Once upon a time, she might have been enchanted by those eyes. They were deep, and dark, and lovely. She could have ignored the spots on his skin - Robb had suffered the same, and everyone had called him handsome still. Perhaps as the young, foolish child Sansa had been before leaving her home the first time, she might have turned up her nose at him, but after Joffrey, she likely would have thought him quite gallant. There was adoration in his eyes when he looked at her, as if he bore this battle wound for her and her alone. But he seemed so impossibly _young_  under her ministrations. His brown eyes, though sweet and worshipful, were unknown to her. Sansa had learned what cruelties could be locked behind uncertain gazes. She had learned the price of being a token to idolize. His brown eyes were lovely, but Sansa longed for a sea-storm instead.

Her eyes threatened to move back to Sam, and her hands trembled. She moved away from the boy with brown eyes. Instead a babe was placed in her arms Sansa stopped in her tracks, eyes still fixed ahead, before she glanced down. "An orphan," the woman said, softly, knowingly. "She needs to be held." Sansa's breath caught in her throat. She was in the crypt with the other women and children. They were protected, they weren't fighting and yet - yet there were casualties. She wanted to ask the woman who the babe's mother was - perhaps the father is here, perhaps he is one of the soldiers who survived, but -

But she had already moved on. There were injuries that need to be tended to, and Sansa was no use with her shaking fingers and wandering eyes. She had reinforced her spine with steel, and looked after as many as she could, but she could no longer pretend that her heart was not trembling inside her chest.

It was a terrifying thing, housing one's heart outside the body. But Sansa's body had known too much pain. She trusted Theon to take care of it. She could not believe that a mistake.

She moved toward Sam, dazed, rocking the babe in her arms. He didn’t look up when she approached - he had likely expected her long ago. Anyone in Winterfell could see the truth of it on Sansa's face. It was almost a terrible thing, and they turned their faces away from it, pushed down their indignation. Men who might have once protested the Stark daughter's tears over a Greyjoy of all people, do not dare to put their thoughts to voice. For the Stark daughter was a wolf with teeth, and she would not hesitate in reminding them exactly why she had turned to a Greyjoy. She would gladly remind them what that Greyjoy had done for her, that the Lords of the North, supposedly loyal to House Stark had not done. They would have to face the truth, their shame, not only the Stark daughter's words. The most heroic thing left to do was to look the truth in the face.

There were few heroes left in this land of men and monsters.

"He's lost blood. Too much of it." Sam's words were soft, but the delivery was not softened. Sansa heard the truth in the spaces between the words. She knew the truth of them in the place between her ribs, where once her heart must have beat, but surely does no longer. She did not look at Sam, she did not look at the man laid out in front of him. Instead she looked down at the babe, and buried her face in the soft furs the orphaned girl had been wrapped in. The most heroic thing she could do was look the truth in the face.

Sansa Stark had never been a hero.

* * *

**ii.**

* * *

Theon Greyjoy does not die.

He doesn't bleed out, even though Maester Samwell Tarly was certain that would be his fate. He doesn't succumb to his wounds, even though Sansa had already begun sewing his burial shroud with trembling fingers and a frozen heart, sitting next to the fire in her chambers that gave off no heat, the small babe cooing on the furs next to the fire. He does not die, even though he should be dead, because he is an Ironborn, and what is dead may never die.

He does not die because he is a hero, and the only heroic thing left is to look the truth in the face. Theon looked Sansa Stark in the face, and he came back to her.

Theon doesn't tell her as much in words, but his hand reaches for her own when she sits at his bedside, and he squeezes her fingers in between his own. Sansa has watched him. He does not like touch. Nor does she. Ramsay has stolen that from both of them. He tolerates it, but he does not initiate it, and yet he reaches for her hand. Sansa wondered if he wanted to hold her hand as desperately as she needed to hold his.

She doesn't bury her face in the crook of his neck and sob the way she wants to, but she presses her lips together and closes her eyes.

"They told me you would die."

It's a whisper, as sharp and cold as a winter wind on the Shivering Sea.

"I told you I would too."

_I would have died to get you there._

"You came home."

There are no words spoken after that. Theon heals, in the sun-soaked room Sansa had insisted he be placed in. She sits at his side with her needle, the babe at her feet. She is no longer sewing together flesh, but she is not sewing Theon's burial shroud. He looks at her hands, curious, craning his neck to stare at the bolts of pale gray fabric draped across her lap, but Sansa is careful about her work. He cannot tell what she is doing. Instead he looks at the babe. He does not ask, and Sansa loves him the more for it.

He can sit up a week later. Sansa feels her heart stopping in her throat as Theon rises on the bed. It is a great effort, and she stares the truth in the face, seeing the pain written onto his face. But he manages with a huff, and he extends his hands out. For a wild moment, Sansa thinks he means to pull her close.

Instead she places the babe in his hands. Theon looks at the babe, and then at her.

"She looks like you."

It's a lie. The babe has the dark hair of the North, and her skin is ruddy and rough. There is a roundness to her cheeks that Sansa never had, a squashed nose that is ticklish to the touch. She is not a particularly beautiful babe, and she looks nothing like Sansa. It is a lie, and it is the sweetest lie Sansa has heard.

"Wildings don't name their babes until six moons have passed," Sansa says, her voice as soft as the words, as soft as Theon's hands against the babe's belly. "In case..." In case. Just in case. Theon's hands do not still, and he does not look up at Sansa. He was good with children, he always had been. The memory strikes Sansa with surprise. Theon had been ten years of age when he arrived at Winterfell. She remembered the day, she remembered the cocky grin he wore. It never seemed to leave his face. Sansa had been a little bit in love, staring up at the roguish boy with the salt in his hair, and the sorrow in his eyes that mismatched the strange smile on his lips. He was not the prince of her songs, but Sansa had not yet been old enough to care. She had fallen in love with him as a girl, and out of love as a girl.

She didn't know what she would say about now.

"She should have a name." Theon's voice was hoarse, and Sansa rather thought she would like to listen to it forever. She had begged him to sing to her as a child. He had once, on her nameday. He was not a singer, not by any stretch of the imagination, and his try at poetry had not been much better. He had done it because Sansa had asked, and that was enough. Sansa would not ask him to speak now. Not when he took such comfort in a silence he had once sought to fill with noise, to drown out the harshness of his own mind. Sansa would not ask him to speak.

She would ache for it all the same.

Sansa and the babe visited Theon every day. Sometimes they would sit in complete silence. Occasionally they would trade possible names. Sansa's eyes would be on the skies, searching for ravens, dragons, the dead. Theon would wonder after the fabric in her hands, but he would never ask. They would hold the babe.

They never gave her a name.

_In case..._

Her father woke up. Another boy turned man by a war with the dead. He had suffered a head wound, and slept for a fortnight. He rose under Samwell Tarly's careful ministrations, and the first words on his lips were that of his wife and daughter. His wife was dead, a body ravaged by the war and the birth of her child, born at the apex of the battle that had straddled the impossible line between night and morn. His daughter was cradled in the careful hands of Lady Stark and the hero of the godswood. She was returned with equal care.

Her name was -

This time, when Theon held out his arms, it was not for the babe, but for Sansa. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, and he stiffened, before relaxing into the grip. Sansa did not sob, but it was only Theon's arms wound tight around her body that kept her heart locked firmly in her chest.

* * *

**iii.**

* * *

 

She needs to go south.

Theon finds her in her chambers, and it is a testament to Brienne's concern for her lady, that she does not say anything about Lord Greyjoy being alone with the Lady of Winterfell in her quarters. There is nothing improper about it.

Neither is there anything proper about the way he sinks to his knees, holding her to his chest as she struggles to breathe. For a moment she is an acolyte of the Drowned God, gasping for breath, but Theon's own fear climbs in his throat, for there is no water he can save her from. Only the pressing weight of the _South_.

"We never should have left Winterfell," she gasps out, fighting against her traitorous lungs. Theon agrees with her, but there is nothing to be done. For Daenerys Targaryen has burnt King's Landing, and Jon killed her to save the world from another Targaryen tyrant. They will kill Jon, if it is allowed. Eddard Stark was murdered on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, confessing to a crime many _knew_  he was innocent of. The people of the South had never felt fearful to kill a Stark.

Sansa would go south, and she would show those who dared to cry for Jon Snow's head, exactly what fear looked like. She would push aside the way her lungs constricted, the way her heart raced in her chest, and she would stare her own fear in the eyes, and dare the world to take another member of her family. The gods had stolen much from her, and Sansa Stark would not let mere mortals take another life. No matter where she needed to march, she would snatch the life back, as if she were a dragon from Old Nan's stories, one of the ferocious beasts that guarded their treasure with jealousy.

Theon knew all of this, as certain as each breath he took, encouraging Sansa to do the same. She was terrified now, and broken, but Theon knew her fear stemmed from the understanding that she _would_. They expected her to deny the summons. Tyrion - a prisoner - had called the Starks to the South, representatives of all the Seven Kingdoms. He knew what the Starks had lost. He knew what his family had taken. He meant to take another. Sansa would not let him. She would ride South, as surely as the sun would rise in the East, and she would rescue Jon Snow.

And Theon would ride with her.

* * *

**iv.**

* * *

 

There is only sunshine in her smile, devoid of any bitterness.

He had protested and pleaded. He had argued that there would be a way, that no one would watch to see that Jon went straight to Castle Black. No one would know if he came to the godswood of Winterfell first. Arya's journey could wait a moon. Bran could begin his reign when the South had righted itself.

She only smiled and pressed her lips to his cheek.

"The South cannot hurt me anymore. We will have the Winterfell godswood, and we will have the shores of Pyke, but first we will have the Starks."

And so they wed in the godswood of King's Landing.

It had not burnt. That brought Sansa some measure of happiness that Theon could never understand. She told him of her time in the godswood, her empty prayers, the only place she felt close to her father, trapped in the lion's den. There was no weirwood tree, but Theon carried the memory of it with him, the scars of his near-death underneath the scarlet leaves on his skin. He would marry her again under that tree, but now Jon and Arya walked her to where he stood, under the heart tree of King's Landing.

She was radiant in gray samite. The fabric was familiar, and Theon realized that it was the dress she had been working on as he healed from the Night King's near-fatal blow. The dress she had never allowed him to see. She had been creating her wedding gown even then. Theon's knees had almost given way, but the Starks had reached him, and Sansa reached for his arm. He took it and felt steadier. She smiled again, and Theon wondered how anything could look quite as lovely as she. Yara’s hand wraps around his shoulder, and he is reminded to breathe. There is no water here to choke upon, only the air in his lungs.

"Who comes before the old gods this night?" Bran's voice was softer than Theon had heard it since his return. He had died in that cave, he claimed, but now his voice was heavy with the weight of a world's history. Theon saw the way the little brother he should have protected, stared at Sansa. He had claimed all that was left of Bran was gone, but Theon knew it could not be true. Bran had loved his family wholly, truly. It threatened to choke him now, as he spoke the words with the gravitas of an all-knowing king, but the grief and gratitude of a younger brother.

There had been a different wedding, on a different night, to a different man. The memory is not far from Sansa's mind, Theon can see that. He had spoken words then, but he would not speak them tonight. Instead it was Jon and Arya who spoke, their voices joined.

"Sansa of House Stark, a woman grown, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?"

Theon's voice is softer still.

"Theon of House Greyjoy and House Stark. Who gives her?"

It is Arya who gives her away first, followed by Jon. His voice trembles, ever so slightly, and his eyes meet Theon's. The Ironborn is reminded of a rocky shore, a fist clenched 'round his shirt, promising safety from the death he deserved, as reward for saving this woman. A lifetime of words is passed between the two men in a glance, and Theon nods, a gesture as quiet as his voice.

"Lady Sansa," for she is not queen yet, and she will be his wife before being named queen, "Do you take this man?"

A beat, a moment, a lifetime and then -

"I take this man."

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos are always appreciated <3


End file.
